Report of Current Monthly Spending Compared to Average Over Time (edited)

cobra1316

Hello! I am really liking Simplifi.

The app already has a notificatiom which shares how much your spending compares to the average per month, but it only shows up periodically.

It would be great if the app could show this information whenever the user wants such as a report or a different representation of the spending plan.

A really neat way to show it is a line graph of current spending compared with the average line graph for linked the last (3, 6, X months). I find trying to beat my average month's spending to be big motivator!

Thanks!

Coach Natalie

Hello @cobra1316,

Thanks for the suggestion! Don't forget to add your vote!

-Coach Natalie

EL1234

Also, it seems like the spending plan isn't updated if I modify the category of a transaction from a previous month. Is that true? if so, it would be nice if we could "refresh" it to get a more accurate view.

Coach Natalie

Hello @EL1234,

Thanks for the inquiry! To clarify, the Spending Plan is designed to just show info for the current month, so making changes to past month's transactions would not affect the current month's Spending Plan.

You can find more details regarding the Simplifi Spending Plan here.

Please let me know if you have any further questions regarding this!

-Coach Natalie

EL1234

I think I was looking at the "Monthly Summary" under Reports, where it shows you where last month's money went. Does that get updated if I change a category after the report was generated?

Coach Natalie

Hello @EL1234,

Thanks for the inquiry!

It looks like changing a category after the Monthly Report is generated does not impact the Monthly Report.

If this is something you'd like to see in Simplifi, you may consider creating a separate Idea post requesting it.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/998/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community/p1?new=1

Thank you,

Coach Natalie

EL1234

Thanks!

scottnliz

I find I want to often try to answer the question "Where have I been unknowingly increasing my spending over time?" and the current Spending Report makes that kind of difficult. 

<a href="https://ibb.co/Y2TKDDR"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/Y2TKDDR/app-simplifimoney-com-reports-spending-by-category-over-time.png" alt="app-simplifimoney-com-reports-spending-by-category-over-time" border="0"></a>

1. I can look at all categories and use the options: Breakdown: "By Category" and the "Over Time" view, but even then, I only get the top 4 categories, and the rest gets lumped into a catch-all category called "Everything Else".  This is not so helpful because it makes drilling into "Everything Else" for more detail very difficult.  
2. The Filters don't allow me to just exclude the top categories one at a time to remove them from the view (unless I manually go in and select every single category one at a time first - which is very painful!)  
3. The Report also only shows the top-level category, with no way to drill down into sub-categories from there, which makes it impossible to see what sub-categories make up that larger spending category.  Also, I'd like to be able to click on a category and/or month, and have it show only those transactions.

Basically, Mint.com's "Trends" page does all this stuff really well, but I'd like to avoid going back there just for this view, if possible, since Simplifi does so many other things better (and I'm paying for it!) 

It shows more than 4 categories (which maybe works better since they only allow a single comparison, not a full month over month view).
<a href="https://ibb.co/xLH52yV"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/xLH52yV/mint-spending-by-category-report.png" alt="mint-spending-by-category-report" border="0"></a>

It even makes it easy to drill down into a category to see the subcategory breakdown over time.
<a href="https://ibb.co/3m5yPsr"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/3m5yPsr/mint-spending-report-shopping-drill-down.png" alt="mint-spending-report-shopping-drill-down" border="0"></a>

scottnliz

I'd like Simplifi Spending Report to work more like Mint's - it would make it much easier to answer the question "How (and in what categories) has my spending been changing over time?"  (not just the big dollar categories, but any of them)

In Simplifi, it's hard to determine what categories are really contributing to spending, or where I'm increasing my spending over time in any given categories.  Simplifi shows me only the top 4 plus "Everything Else" and drilling into Everything Else is hard since I can't exclude specific categories without manually selecting every category in the filter, and then unselecting the top 4 to see the next top 4, and on and on.  A select all would be a nice step.  But even better would be some kind of drill down clicking feature.

Also, I have sub-categories, and it's hard to know what sub-categories are contributing to changes in spending over time.  It would be nice to click into a top-level category to see a drill-down view of the sub-categories.

Simplifi:



Mint:






I'd prefer to not have to go to Mint just for this view, since Simplifi does so many other things well, and I'm paying for it too!

Coach Natalie

Hello @scottnliz,

Thanks for posting this to the Community!

I have gone ahead and turned this into an Idea post so that other Users can vote on it, and our Product Team can review it. Please be sure to add your vote as well!

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Please be sure to add your votes here if you'd like to see the "Everything Else" bucket removed from Reports -- https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1702/get-rid-of-everything-else-and-show-all-categories-on-the-spending-report-graph-edited

scottnliz

I added my vote to the other one you linked, but it doesn't cover everything I asked for here.  The main thing I'd like to see is category exclusion list based filtering so you could specify specific categories to remove from the report, rather than having to pick every category to include.

Martina99

I have a similar but slightly different interest.  I'd like to be able to analyze spending by category by showing spending by category (eliminate the "everything else"), showing average spend.  

For example, I'd like to see ytd spending, this quarter spending, two-year spending, etc. -- all by category, showing averages.  Example:  I have a category called horses that varies considerably, and so in order to develop a budget I need to look at average monthly spending over time.  

Their are several ways to design this, but in a nutshell, the software reports don't allow quick budget/spend analysis.   Here's a concept that provides total actuals and averages:  

Category  / This month / this quarter / YTD  / monthly avg YTD/ Monthly avg past 12 mos / past 24 mos

Horse            $400           $1500         $7000      $1000                   $1400                                 $1800
Groceries       $500 
Utilities           $300
(Etc.)

Totals            $1200            $$$            $$$     

This report needs to show all categories selected, no "everything else" rollups.

Filtering improvement: 

The reporting tool needs to make it easy to exclude categories also.  Select all/allowing deselect on some categories would be very helpful.  I have one category called "one-time-home" that I used for major purchases, and I'd like to see the select/deselect categories be improved.  

Martina99

I'd like to see a better spending analysis report with better filtering, and showing all categories.  This report would show spending trends and averages over time, by category.  In one report you can see trends and totals over time.  

Better filtering needs to have a quick mechanism to select all/then deselect categories.  I have a category called "one-time home", for major projects, and I'd like to be able to quickly de-select that category.  

Report example (not very pretty but I hope the concept is clear):

                                                                 Monthly averages:
Category / this month / this Qtr / YTD  /   AvgYTD  -- AvgPast 12 mos -- AvgPast 24 mos

Horse          $300         $3000    $10000     $1100         $1400                    $1800
Groceries     $100         $1500    $ 7000      $                  $                           $
Utilities        $200         $ 600     $ 2000       $                  $                          $
(Etc.)

Totals          $600          $4700    $19000

ajbopp

I'd like to see a report similar to the current spending report, but with a line graph showing my spending in a category over a period of time. This would allow me to gauge how much my grocery bill, for example, is increasing over time, and help me better project what I will need to spend on groceries in my Spending Plan.

bobmount

Seems like an obvious miss here, but there seems to be no way to easily see my total amount of spending in every category, per month, over time.

I.e.:

This is the foundation for setting up a budget—-Knowing what your current monthly expenditures are. Have asked several Chat reps on the site, and all say this isn't possible directly. Very surprising!

ajbopp

@bobmount You can do this from the spending report, by selecting a date range and a category filter, but only one category at a time.

Jenny T

I would also like to see better spending trends graphs/reports! One I have seen in another solution is an interactive stacked area graph. It starts with showing spending over time at top tier categories, highlights the selected tier on the graph and also allows you to drill into the sub-categories and adjusts the graph to show an area graph of the sub-categories. I think this type of graph is visually appealing and easily helps you identify if categories are trending up or down over a period of time.